How much pain are you in on a scale from one to 10?
This simple method is still the way pain is measured in doctors’ offices, clinics, and hospitals—but how do I know if my five out of 10 is the same as yours?
A new, early-stage platform aims to more objectively measure and share our individual perception of pain. It measures brain activity in two people in order to understand how their experiences compare and recreate one person’s pain for the other. The platform was developed as a partnership between the large Tokyo-based telecommunications company NTT Docomo and startup PaMeLa, short for Pain Measurement Laboratory, in Osaka, Japan.
It’s part of a project from Docomo called Feel Tech. “We are developing a human-augmentation platform designed to deepen mutual understanding between people,” a Docomo representative told IEEE Spectrum by email. (Answers were originally provided in Japanese and translated by Docomo’s public relations.) “Previously, we focused on sharing movement, touch, and taste—senses that are inherently difficult to express and communicate. This time, our focus is on pain, another sense that is challenging to articulate.”
Docomo demonstrated the platform last month at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC), Japan’s largest electronics trade show.
How Shared Pain Perception Tech Works
The system consists of three components: a pain-sensing device, a platform for estimating the difference in sensitivity, and a heat-based actuation device.
First, the system uses electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain waves and uses an AI model to “visualize” pain as a score between 0 and 100, for both the sender and receiver. The actuation device is then calibrated based on each person’s sensitivity, so a sensation transmitted to both people will feel the same.
In this initial version, the platform works with thermally induced pain stimuli. “This method allows for precise adjustment and ensures safety during research and development,” Docomo says. PaMeLa also used thermal stimulation in its research on determining the intensity level of pain, which graded the pain stimulation data of 461 subjects with machine learning algorithms.
However, the company says, pain from other sources can also be shared. Eventually, Docomo aims to convey many types of physical and even psychological pain, which will be an aim of future research. “We believe there are various possibilities for how pain can be captured and shared,” Docomo says.
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